BSU stays silent

But helps with finals

By: Luke Landgraf

Word count: 820

(story 8)

If you were to walk into a dorm in the past week , you wouldn’t see or hear much of anything. Across BSU, dorms stay quiet for grand silence for students to study for their finals.  BSU helped with their students by providing them with study breaks with the comedian Jay Black and midnight breakfast at Walnut along with couple of other things.

The grand silence started Tuesday Dec. 7 at 11pm and went through Dec.. 15 at 4 pm.  For some students this grand silence was very beneficial but for some who didn’t really have finals it was a burden. “ I didn’t have any finals I just had couple of papers that I had to write and I got them done like a week ago,” said Emily Gieser a BSU freshman “this grand silence thing was kind of boring.  But in respect of my neighbors the whole idea of grand silence is a good idea because im pretty sure that I will be stuck with couple of finals next semester.”

The grand silence means that the quiet hours take place during the day as they would at night.  There was a time during the day where students could open there doors for a little hallway social time with their peers, during dinner time and that was from 4:30-6:30.  But other than this time students are not allowed to have their doors open and the noise that comes from their room has to be minimal. During this time students could do things they could do on any normal day. For example vacuums were available to students at this time but when respect hours started up again there were no longer. 

Jay Black was here at BSU on Dec. 8 and his act was from 9-11 pm in HA 100.  “He was kind of funny, it was way better than sitting in my dorm room and studying that’s forsure,” said Nick Barratto a Sophomore at BSU “ he had a lot of different jokes, he was nothing like the guys on TV but it was good to get away from the stress of finals for a bit.”

That same night BSU put on a midnight breakfast for their students at walnut from 10-12. There was roughly about 700 students that attended the midnight study break.  “ The food there was really good, the eggs were kind of weird but its way better  than the normal food they server at walnut,” said Alyson Lehman who is a freshman at BSU “as good as it was it was a long wait to get your food cause there was so many kids there but it was totally worth the wait.”

Along with those things that BSU provided there was still more.  In crying wolf on Dec. 7^th there was “De-Stress With Pets.”  This was where students could go play with multiple types of pets that are in the early stages of their life and distress themselves.  Most of the animals that were there at Crying wolf were puppies that were brought from the human society.  The event was sponsored by Living Well,  Lifestyle Educators, and the Human society.  Along with animals available to be played with to relieve stress the animals are also up for adoption to a good home.

One of the final events that BSU put on for their students was Mediation Moment.  This event is to help students with anxiety relief.  They accomplished this by playing a tape filled with relaxing sounds to clear the mind and allowed students to forget about the stress and the mental punishment that finals could have.

Grand silence is not only a bad thing for a student who doesn’t have finals but it’s also bad for the Residential Assistance (RAs). “ I have had to write up more students for being loud in the last week then I have written up all year,” said Will Joerger an RA in Oak Hal “It sucks for me because I don’t like to be a  mean person but I do have to do my job, and you’re not supposed to be loud during grand silence and the residents know that. They also know that they cant have their doors open during the silent time and I have to keep walking around to shut their door and that gets really old, but it will all be ok. Soon all the residences will be done with finals and they will be on their way home.”

These were the signs that were found in the dorms across BSU that informed the residence of when grand silence started, ended, and what the expectations were.

Walnut is the location where the midnight breakfast took place.  Many students took time out of their studying schedule to come and eat a midnight snack with their peers and get away from studying.